Ethics Committee to meet, but it's not clear if vote on Gaetz report is on its agenda

The bipartisan House Ethics Committee will meet Wednesday behind closed doors, where it's poised to discuss its report on its investigation of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who resigned from office last week after President-elect Donald Trump chose him as his nominee for attorney general.

The fate of the Gaetz report is in the hands of the committee, which has a reputation for being tight-lipped. It's not clear if the committee will vote on whether to release the report.

If there is a vote, a majority of the five Democrats and five Republicans on the committee must approve its public disclosure. In other words, at least one Republican must break party ranks to join Democrats to force its release.

The committee spoke with more than a dozen witnesses, issued at least 25 subpoenas and reviewed thousands of pages of documents in its Gaetz investigation.

The investigation into Gaetz

On April 9, 2021, the secretive panel announced it had initiated a review into allegations that Gaetz "may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct."

House Ethics initially deferred its consideration of the matter in response to a request from the Department of Justice, which conducted its own multiple-year sex-trafficking probe into the four-term congressman.

In February 2023, DOJ informed lawyers representing witnesses that it would not bring charges against Gaetz.

Gaetz blamed former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy when the Ethics Committee reauthorized its investigation in May 2023 after the Department of Justice had withdrawn its deferral request. Gaetz then successfully led the charge to oust McCarthy as speaker.

This June, the committee announced it was still investigating whether Gaetz had "engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct."

But it announced it would take "no further action" on the allegations that he may have shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe or improper gratuity.

The House Ethics Committee had nearly completed the inquiry before Gaetz abruptly resigned last week after Trump announced he had selected Gaetz as his attorney general nominee.

The committee generally drops investigations of House members if they leave office but Republicans and Democrats have argued whether a break in that precedent is necessary for the Senate to perform its constitutional duty to advise and consent to presidential nominations.

While the clearest above-water path for the report's release is by agreeing to a majority vote by the Ethics Committee, there is also speculation that any single member could offer a privileged resolution on the House floor to force an up-or-down vote on its disclosure.

What committee leaders have said

Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss, has been tight-lipped about the meeting agenda on Wednesday but said he has read the Gaetz report.

Ranking Democrat Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania told reporters that the Gaetz report should be disclosed to the public.

"You either are going to disclose it or you're not going to disclose it. So, and there's plenty of precedents in the Ethics Committee to disclose the report even after a member has resigned," Wild said Monday night.

What congressional leaders have said

Johnson has made clear that he believes the committee should not release an investigative report on a former member of Congress.

"My job is to protect the institution, and I have made very clear that I think it's an important guardrail for our institution that we not use the House Ethics Committee to investigate and report on persons who are not members of this body," Johnson told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, during a press conference on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries answered "Yes" when asked if the report should be released.

Who's on the committee?

The five Republicans on the committee are: Chairman Michael Guest of Mississippi, David Joyce of Ohio, John Rutherford of Florida, Andrew Garbarino of New York and Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota.

The five Democrats are: Ranking Member Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Mark DeSaulnier of California, Deborah Ross of North Carolina and Glenn Ivey of Maryland.